We have responsibilities

Guelph Mercury

This editorial appeared in Wednesday’s Toronto Star:

Canadians may not be the biggest greenhouse gas polluters in the world, putting out a bare two per cent of global emissions. But that doesn’t relieve us of the obligation to come up with a credible plan to address the problem now that we have formally abandoned the seriously flawed Kyoto process.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government would be wise to chart a new and more ambitious course that the public understands and supports, or risk this country being cast as a chronic environmental shirker.

Environment Minister Peter Kent may talk of “taking concrete steps domestically” to curb the carbon emissions that drive global warming and contribute to melting arctic ice, rising seas, heat waves, storms, floods and drought. But Ottawa has yet to come up with truly “constructive solutions or meaningful action,” in the view of Matt Horne, director of the Pembina Institute’s climate change program.

After six years of Conservative government and $9 billion budgeted to curb greenhouse gases Canada’s output remains frustratingly high. Even if the government makes good on its pledge to cut emissions in lockstep with the U.S., by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020, Canada will continue to churn out some 600 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. That’s the same as in 1990, the Kyoto benchmark year. This looks less like progress than a 30-year holding pattern. And we’re barely a quarter of the way to achieving even that slack target.

While hopes weren’t high for the United Nations conference in Durban, the biggest carbon spewers — the United States, China and India — unexpectedly defied the pessimists by agreeing to negotiate a common binding agreement in the next few years. Of course there’s reason for skepticism. Even if they succeed, that will kick the can forward to 2015, and any deal won’t bite until 2020. So we face another wasted decade in the drive to cap the rise in Earth’s temperature to a tolerable 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era, instead of a more destabilizing 3 or 3.5 degrees. But at least the worst offenders had the sense to acknowledge the problem and set themselves a target.

Here at home, Harper could set a healthy example by staking out a more aggressive domestic strategy in the next few years. Certainly, there is public support for a more ambitious policy. An Environics Research poll recently found three in four favour limiting carbon emissions — even if it requires higher energy prices.

Politically, the Conservatives seem to have some room to control and mitigate the damage done by the lucrative but dirty oilsands. They can consider carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems to discourage fossil fuel use and to promote green technology. And they could provide more incentives for other provinces to follow Ontario and British Columbia in phasing out coal, imposing a carbon tax and adopting other green measures.

All this could insulate them from criticism that they have failed to show the leadership Canadians value on climate change. Environmentalists fault Ottawa for failing to provide adequate domestic tax incentives for renewable energy, and for failing to more aggressively curb coal-fired electricity, and car and truck emissions. They have a point.

Granted, Canadians can’t stop global warming single-handedly. But we can do much more to clean up our act.